OF RIGHT AND LEFT

I have a soft spot for Matthew Parris, the political columnist for the Times of London and the Spectator in London. His recent column in the Spectator is a classic: stimulating, and, I think, spot-on. He’s talking about what now distinguishes the right from the left. His context is Britain, but it applies just as well to the U.S.: “The Tory party on the whole is in modern politics to protect and foster success and the successful. Its atavistic and ancient support for the landed and the gentry has been extended in the last century to trade, commerce and industry, too; to the professions, the bourgeoisie, to those on the make as well as those who have already made it. On the whole the forces of Conservatism are on the side of talent, of energy, of ambition, of hard work, of privilege acquired and privilege striven for. These are the red blood cells of the Conservative party; these carry the oxygen, and so many of the new ideas.” But Matthew then goes on to argue that this very support for success needs a balancing point – a liberal and pragmatic conscience that says from time to time, “‘tread carefully,’ ‘never forget the rest’, ‘gently does it’, and ‘so far and no further.'” Similarly, left-wing parties need leaders from time to time to remind their base that attacking the successful can back-fire. So a party of conservatives needs a softy like W from time to time; and a party of excuse-makers and empathizers needs a Blair or a Clinton to remind them of the need to keep the middle-classes and the aspirational types on board. It’s all a balancing act. My own two cents is that the Republicans and Tories need to tackle head-on the new populist rhetoric of the rich and the poor. They need to talk less about tax cuts for the rich and more about tax-cuts for the successful. It’s a subtle rhetorical shift, but an important one. One of Gore-Greenberg’s legacies is the re-stigmatization of success – whether it be white or Asian college students with high SATs, pioneering pharmaceutical companies, or Bill Gates. One of the tasks of the next decade is to banish this encroaching stigmatization of success – and to reward achievement more effectively. I say: drop the top rate from 39 to 33 percent. And make no apologies for it.